You want to have your website made. How do you actually handle that? What do you have to pay attention to? What are the do and dont’s? In this article, we give you 10 useful tips.
Tip 1. What do you want exactly?
Before you contact a website builder, it is good to start by asking yourself a question: What exactly do you want? What do you want from your new website? Who are the customers you hope to reach with your new website? What are my customers looking for? Why are they looking for your company? What do you have to offer them? These are the kind of questions that we will always ask you, as well as other good web builders. You save a lot of time, and also money if you have made this VERY clear to yourself beforehand.
Tip 2. Ask your customers
If you find it difficult to answer these questions, ask your customers. Your customers usually want to help you. Their help will support you to set up your own website right from the start. Just as in sales, your customers are a useful source. A source to learn more about yourself, the image that you really have. Moreover, its very often a source that is completely forgotten and ignored by people.
Tip 3. Find a good web builder
Your own website is the calling card for you and your company. A good website builder is an important condition for the success of your website. Do not just believe a web builder who brags that he can deliver both a beautiful and a well-found website and the lowest price. Someone who is very good in graphics is technically often less capable, and the other way around. If you want both, then you are best off with a website builder who works together with a graphic designer. You are also immediately certain that the graphic designer is specialized on the internet, which does not apply to all designers.
Tip 4. Be careful with free
You often see that small entrepreneurs are very active on Facebook or other social media and have built up a great community there. Nice and easy and free, great right? You can question that. What if Facebook is suddenly no longer as popular, as happened with Hyves? Or if Facebook suddenly starts asking money for its services or worse, it stops? You have lost your entire community. Your details are yours on your own website. Before you start, think about giving away your customers to Facebook, Flickr or other social media. You better spend some money and have a website built than the costly mistake of losing your community in one fell swoop.
Tip 5. Consult from the very beginning
You usually start by choosing a domain name. It is wise to involve your web builder in this process. A good domain name is important in connection with the optimization of your website, it does not always have to be the name of your company!
Tip 6. Make sure the domain name belongs to you
Domain names can be obtained for free. For example, you can choose a free subdomain on wordpress.com. Nice and handy. The same applies as for Facebook and Flickr. In addition, you run into technical limitations if you want more with your website. For your company, I really advise you to take a free domain name. Your own domain name and a hosting package cost a few bucks per year. Cutting back on this could well be “penny wise and pound foolish”.
Tip 7. Personal data and security
If you request personal data via your website, and you already do this when you request a name and e-mail address for your newsletter, you are legally obliged to secure it properly. Your hosting is also important. Where are the servers that have your data on? If they are in another country, you have to deal with the legislation of that other country. It is therefore wise to opt for hosting in the Netherlands if you are based in the Netherlands.
New website Estepona
Tip 8. You can not outsource everything
Many web developers will guarantee that your website will be well found on Google (good search engine optimization). Unfortunately, they can not guarantee that. At least not just like that. Of course, having a new website made, means that you discuss website optimization and that the foundation must be good. But optimizing a website also means actively using social media and collecting links to build a reputation, regularly adding new content to your website, writing good SEO texts and managing your website for example by deleting dead links. You might do this sort of thing yourself and determine the success rate of your website.
Tip 9. Provide insight into all costs
Having your website made is not the end of the story. When your website is ready, it must be managed. From time to time, you want to make changes. You want different content or perhaps the whole structure differently. It is useful to have clear information at the start of what it will cost if you want something. You avoid surprises. There are also still web builders who charge extra for things that should be standard, such as a responsive website (a website that adapts to tablets and smartphones). So your new website seems cheap, but it is ultimately not.
Tip 10. Know your limitations
Many entrepreneurs do everything themselves. they build and manage their own website, writes own texts and is active on social media. That is sometimes such a shame. Then an entrepreneur is very good at his job, but he has a clumsy website. Writing texts is a profession, building a website and creating a beautiful design is also. Know your limitations. If you want a professional website, take it professionally.
Are you looking for a new website Estepona area?
We are more than happy to support your company with the development of your website and digital strategies. Our unique approach to web design originates from many years of SEO experience, graphic (web) design and social media. We, therefore, have a holistic approach to web design, focussing on full digital performance with a strong flavor of inbound marketing.